Tuesday, September 19, 2006

"Dateline"(Australia) did a a show this week(2006-09-13) which includes video news stories on how "gasoline junkies" are finding recovery from their addiction and how elected officials and policy makers are helping to make that happen. Watch online while you can (LINK)

The first story in is based Los Angeles(SoCAl). The title of that story is "EV1 - The Electric Dream". The next story is titled "Lyon - Velov City?". The first story gives a behind the scenes look at the a growing community of folks who are saying no to to gasoline, and Yes to electricity and solar power. The second story is about a program in the City of Lyon France called "Velov" in which the city hopes to entice more people to ride bicycles by providing free or nearly free bicycles throughout the region, just as a form of "Flexcar" does by carsharing, they do by bike sharing in the form of a "Flexbike", first coined here. They do the "community bike" program, similar to others around the world, by also applying new technology to be sure the bicycles are kept in good shape and its riders accountable for thier treatment of the bikes. The program is funding through advertising sales in the most part, making the bicycles available for almost free to the cyclists. Watch online while you can(LINK). Also see: GrandLyon(french) and (english translation)

The last story that I would like to bring to your attention is one that Dateline (Australia) did last week(2006-09-06) which includes a story titled "Curitiba - the future of Cities". A story about a city in south of Brazil of 3 million people, that prioritized policy making to to put people of the city before cars. Watch online while you can. Watch online while you can (LINK)

EV1-The Electric Dream

The program tonight has a recognisably green tinge to it and it is pure coincidence that Al Gore has been hanging about here this week promoting his film about the effects of global warming. Yesterday in the US, the General Motors Corporation unveiled a prototype without a motor that they claim will run 300km on a single tank of hydrogen converted to electricity. The critics are already off and running, warning this new technology is far too expensive and that a hydrogen car won't be mass-produced during our lifetime. The prototype, that GM claims is the most significant development since cars were invented, comes a decade after GM was also involved in another radical, vehicular experiment that saw the makers produce solar-powered electric cars. As you're about to see, these snazzy, clean, green machines were loudly touted as the solution to the globe's ever-increasing pollution problems, not to mention America's unrelenting dependence on Middle East oil. But that grand experiment came to a sudden, shuddering halt. Dateline's David Brill travelled to California to see if he could get to the bottom of this motoring murder mystery

Velov City

Next up Dateline is in France to take a look at an intriguing collaboration between private enterprise and the city of Lyon, where the aim is to reduce car use and promote the humble bicycle as the vehicle of choice. Ginny Stein reports that the innovative scheme is working like a charm

Watch these three stories online. Watch online while you can. (VIDEO LINK). When the video screen pops up, scroll down the stories on the right to find these stories.